Natalie versus the tornado...

Yesterday, Natalie and I went to join Tara, Sarah, and Nancy at St. Augustine Beach. It was cloudy, but warm as we stepped onto the beach. Natalie loved the water and thought the ocean waves were so fun as they knocked her down again and again. Tara and I kept holding her close as we noted the waves were rough. After a few minutes we started to hear thunder. So we made our way back to the towels. We looked over and saw the storm coming. It looked pretty and way off in the distance. A minute later the lifeguard packed up his stuff and walked off the beach. We should have followed immediately, but he said we had "ten minutes till it starts raining." So we started gathering up our stuff, while we chatted away. All of the sudden it was pouring. Lightening flashed everywhere around us and the wind was blowing sand so hard that it hurt. We grabbed anything we could and we all started running. I wrapped two towels around Natalie and held her close. The wind was so fierce and the rain so hard, that I couldn't open my eyes. I knew there were steps coming so I kept trying to force them open. We ran with all our might. We made it to a shelter as the lifeguard laughed at us. It wasn't much with the downpour so we made it to the car. We drove back to the condo in awe. The stop lights were out. Trees were laying across roof tops and car. One huge tree in front of the condo was uprooted, along with the sidewalk. We couldn't believe we ran through this. Later that afternoon one of the maintenance guys told us a tornado hit the beach. After living in Iowa, I wasn't convinced. But, later that night, as Chris and I watched the news the man said, one confirmed tornado on Crescent beach. Chris just stared at me. He said, "I moved you from tornado alley so you could find the one tornado today in the state?" "Yeah," I said, "you did, and your baby was wrapped in two blankets." Natalie laughed the entire time we ran to the car. She giggled right in my ear in sheer delight. She didn't realize she was in any danger. She was in Mommy's arms with fun stuff falling from the sky. To be honest, we all laughed as we ran. It was fun to run through the rain. It was fun to hear her laugh and to feel soaking wet to the bone. It felt refreshing. We didn't realize we were any danger either. It was just fun stuff falling from the sky. And besides, we were all wrapped up too, in God's arms.